For a company that’s long been entrenched in the camcorder space, Sony’s pocket video cameras have always been off target in terms of features and usability. The Bloggie MHS-PM5 minicamcorder, however, at least shows improvement and a better understanding of what consumers are after with these devices. The Bloggie matches up well against competing models when it comes to shooting movies, offering good features and decent results. Sharing your clips, on the other hand, is not as user-friendly as cams from Flip Video, Kodak, and others.

Also, the product name, however silly it sounds, is an accurate descriptor. Its clips are suitable for Web sharing and nondiscerning TV viewing. Just because it’s capable of recording at 1080p doesn’t mean it can replace larger full HD camcorders or that the video is “Blu-ray quality.”

Show your videos to the world. Just use the pre-installed Picture Motion Browser (PMB) Portable software to pre-select videos and images in the camera and easily upload them to a compatible PC and popular internet sharing sites. No additional software needed.

Sony’s Bloggie joins the growing ranks of pocket camcorders offering a resolution of 1920 x 1080. Paired with a 5-megapixel 1/2.5-inch CMOS sensor, the Bloggie delivers excellent video quality for a pocket camcorder. You also have the choice to bump the resolution down to 1280 x 720 at either 30 or 60 frames per second, or down to 640 x 480 resolution.

Color reproduction looked accurate on the Bloggie and while there is some digital noise (or graininess) in dim light, the Bloggie held up about as well as its main rivals: Kodak’s Zi8 and Pure Digital’s Flip UltraHD. Unfortunately, for all this great HD video, Sony didn’t include an HDMI output on the Bloggie. You’re left with lower quality A/V outputs for viewing your vids on an HDTV.